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Easy credit for clean buildings
If your cleaning staff already keeps your building relatively clean, this credit—and the associated exemplary performanceIn LEED, certain credits have established thresholds beyond basic credit achievement. Meeting these thresholds can earn additional points through Innovation in Design (ID) or Innovation in Operations (IO) points. As a general rule of thumb, ID credits for exemplary performance are awarded for doubling the credit requirements and/or achieving the next incremental percentage threshold. However, this rule varies on a case by case basis, so check the credit requirements. point—should be easy to achieve. If performed professionally and...
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27 Comments
Auditors & Consistency
Hello LEEDUser! I am working on a rather large building in NYC (2 million SF). They want to conduct an audit for IEQc3.2 but we are concerned about consistency. Here's why: 1) the building is too large to conduct a full audit in a timely manner with 2 people. Even starting first thing in the morning before occupants come to the building, we are still going to be auditing well into the evening hours which means that the spaces we get to later will be less clean because they will have been occupied all day. We may not even be able to complete the audit in under a day, which runs into more consistency issues. 2) we are considering using 2 teams of 2 auditors (4 people total) to get the job done faster to avoid this, BUT then we run into consistency issues with how the auditors are scoring and the fact that each team will only see half of the audited spaces. 2 teams will get the job done faster and all 4 people will receive the same APPA training. Is this an acceptable method? Has anyone ever conducted the audit like this? It seems like no matter what we do we are compromising the consistency of the audit. What do you recommend? Thank you!!
Pursuing EQ3.2 but not EQ3?
We have a building that is not pursuing EQ3.1 because they're having trouble getting some tenants who use their own cleaning contractor on board with the building's approach. Is it still possible to achieve EQ3.2 ? As part of the cleaning audit, they still plan to audit tenant spaces, however some of these spaces (over 10%) are cleaned by a separate contractor who is not necessarily adhering perfectly to their green cleaning policy. Thank you for any guidance!
IEQc3.1 is not a prerequisite for iEQc3.2. FYI, if it were, it would be stated in the credit language (see tab above).
Independent/ Special Spaces in audit
I recently received a clarification asking if all spaces within the building had been included in the audit, such as the restaurant, fitness center, and preschool space. In the past the audit has covered conference rooms, lobbies/entries, offices, corridors/ stairwells, storage, and washrooms. If a building has spaces such as the three mentioned above that do not perfectly match these descriptions, must they be audited as well, as their own category? I know you can exclude them, but if I did not want to go that route would they still have to be audited simply because they are different from the rest of the building? Thanks
Operational Guidelines for Educational Facilities: Custodial
It appears that the guidelines references in the LEED 2009 manual have now been revised and are no longer available. Does anyone have any experience with the new updated (with revised title above?). I would rather avoid spending $110 on the wrong book!
LEED Reviewer in disbelief
I'd like to share a recent reviewer comment. If we had not already achieved more than 60 points, I would have appealed this ruling, but it's not worth my time at this point.
"For future submittals, ensure that for any space types where 10% consists of fewer than five rooms, the required numberof rooms are audited."
This comment is not specific enough to sufficently document compliance in an appeal. It is the same comment from the prelim review, which we corrected by auditing additional spaces (example - all staircases, both elevators, and all restrooms). I am confused by what else could be missing. There are more than 5 workstations and conference rooms and we audited 10% of each. I think part of the problem is that the APPA space types do not match the space type inputs in PIF3, nor do they auto-fill. So for future projects, we are using the APPA space type as the starting point for defining regularly occupied space types for PIF3--this semes backwards for me.
Is there a more appropriate venue to make these comments on LEED forms? (besides feedback form on LO)
Lastly, beware of ranking your janitorial staff to high, we also got this comment, "It appears that each space received an average score of 1, which is atypical for a building with numerous spacetypes and for a building of this size. ... Please provide a clarification narrativedescribing the methods used to audit each space and confirming that each space type was assigned an accurate cleanliness score. Ensure that thenarrative confirms that the audit was conducted in accordance with APPA Custodial Staffing Guidelines to determine the appearance level of the facility."
I was offended by this comment. Our property manager pays a premium for premiumn cleaning services. I believe this credit has fundamental flaws in the documentation requirements.
Would it have been quesitoned if we used the leed user worksheet?
Alyson- did they actually deny the credit? Or just provide you with "helpful" advice for next time? I agree that the form for this one is frustrating. I do tend to use and submit a separate worksheet (whether is is LEEDuser's or a different one) to try to show exactly what we did.
IEQc3.2 APPA audit compliance using ISO 90001
Our client follows ISO 90001 audit guidelines (and has for years). The site team does an internal audit once a month, and conducts an ISO 90001 audit once a year. Can we submit our ISO audit information in lieu of an APPA audit?
You could attempt to submit the ISO 90001 audits as an alternate compliance path, but I don't believe that it would be accepted since the credit very specifically requires an APPA audit. I haven't tried this alternate compliance path for this credit, but have had other similar alternate compliance approach turned down.
Are garage areas counted?
To whom it may concern,
I have a question that I did not find a solution to in the LEED EBOMEBOM is an acronym for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance, one of the LEED 2009 rating sytems. Reference Guide or in the credit-by-credit forum on this website.
In the audit that will be made in the building, do I have to consider the garage areas? In the site plan there is a parking garage.
Thanks.
We have never audited garage spaces and been fine. That's never a 100% guarantee that they won't start requiring them in the future, but you should be OK not doing the garage.
Tenant vacancy
Do spaces that are not regularly cleaned such as mechanical rooms and tenant storage rooms need to be counted as the 10% exempted? We have one tenant with their own custodial service declining to participate. When you add them to the areas I noted, the total is over 10%.
Mechanical rooms do not need to be audited, but storage rooms typically do. You may take a little bit of a hit on your average appearance levels by including storage rooms as required if they are not regularly cleaned, but it may not be enough to negatively impact your changes on this credit.
Space Use Category for Open Workstations
I am working with a client to identify which spaces in their building to audit and am curious if anyone has handled open workstations (i.e. cubes) differently than closed offices? What I would like to do is treat closed offices as one space category and open workstations as another space category. For open area workspaces, we would break the area into quadrants per floor. We would have the auditor(s) review at least 10% of the quadrants (by both area and number).
As an example, a floor has ten open areas with approximately 300 cubes on the floor (30 cubes/area). We would randomly select one of these areas and evaluate the cleanliness of the floors, horizontal & vertical services, lighting fixtures, and trash containers in that area. On the next floor, we would select an area on a different part of the floor to evaluate.
Katie- in the past I have always differentiated between open office and private office spaces, making sure that I audit at least 10% of each type. Your quadrant system sounds fine to me, you can also simplify even further by simply ensuring that you audit at least 10% of the open office space area.
Clarification on total space that needs to be audited
Can someone please clarify the following points as the LEED forms seem to very confusing on the appropriate space to audit?
If there are less than five total spaces for a space type, you need to audit all spaces. Otherwise, you need to audit 10% of the total floor area of that space type.
Or,
Do you audit all rooms if there is less than 5, and if 10% of the rooms equate to less than 5, then you must audit at least 5 rooms?
Also,
If there are more than 5 spaces, then do you simply have to audit 10% of the total floor area, and 10% of the floor area for each space type, or do you also have to audit 10% of the total number of rooms for each space type?
If there are less than 5 spaces of any type, you must audit all spaces of that type. If there are more than 5 of any type of space you should audit 10% of the spaces or 5 spaces, whichever is larger.
If more than 5 spaces, audit 10% of the number of spaces. If your randomly selected 10% of the spaces do not equal at least 10% of the total area of that space type, add additional spaces until you also reach 10% of the area of that type.
Tenant Spaces with Separate Cleaning Company
If some tenants in a multi-tenant office building prefer to use their own cleaning service rather than the one the management uses on the rest of the building, can those spaces be excluded from the audit? If so, do they need to account for less than 10% of the total gross square footageSum of the floor areas of the spaces within the building including basements, mezzanine and intermediate-floored tiers, and penthouses with headroom height of 7.5 ft or greater. It is measured from the exterior faces of exterior walls or from the centerline of walls separating buildings, but excluding covered walkways, open roofed-over areas, porches and similar spaces, pipe trenches, exterior terraces or steps, chimneys, roof overhangs, and similar features. of the building? Or, if those tenants will allow it, can their spaces be included in the audit, and counted, even though they are not under the control of the management?
You should go ahead and include all of the spaces in the audit even if they are not under the control of the management. You may be able to exclude up to 10% (if you are not trying to exclude a different 10% for other credits), but the better solution is to go ahead and include the spaces.
Audit Form for Classroom
We are preparing a LEED EB certification for a school and need an audit form for classroom areas. Is there one available for free or do we need to purchase the APPA Guidelines to get the audit forms for classrooms?
Brian- there may be some free forms floating around on the internet. I have also found that many janitorial companies have all of the forms and are willing to share. I would recommend purchasing the guide, though, if you think you may be doing more of these audits in the future.
EBOM 2009 IEQc3.2 Room types and square footage
I have about one million square feet of commercial office space that obviously includes mail rooms, entries, break rooms, small conference rooms, rest rooms, elevators, etc. Do I really need to measure each and every space to figure out total sq ft of each type? This could take weeks! Since it's all cleaned by the same crew can't I just do 10% of the total "Office" space?
Lee- In order to be in total compliance with the APPA guidelines, you would have to total up your actual square footage of each space type and then audit 10% (or at least five rooms) of each type, so 10% of breakrooms, 10% of copy areas, 10% of private office, 10% of conference rooms, etc. There may be some latitude in estimating the total square footage of spaces of each type, but lumping everything together as "office" will definitely not fly.
From doing the audit in the past, I can also tell you that cleaning crews do put more or less effort into certain types of spaces and have specific issues associated with certain types of areas (i.e. sticky floors in break rooms, dirty blinds in conference rooms or burnt out lights in restrooms). Consequently, part of the value of the information derived from the audit has to do with dividing the spaces into types.
If this credit is more labor intensive for your building type than you would like, there are always other credits you can pursue instead!
APPA room types
Anyone know where I can find the weighting factors for hotel guest rooms?
Brian,
It's unlikely the weighting factors for hotel guest rooms are available in the APPA Guidelines as they were written for use in schools. Because APPA does not designate weighting factors for many room types in office buildings, hotels, convention facilities, etc., you're allowed to create your own factors. You can learn how to do this in the “Before the Performance Period” section on the “Checklists” tab.
APPA Custodial Staffing Guidelines
I was wondering if it was necessary to purchase the Custodial Staffing Guidelines handbook or are the guidelines provided in the LEED reference guide and through LEEDuser enough to conduct the audit properly?
You certainly aren't required to purchase the APPA guidelines, and the LEED Reference Guide and the information provided above in LEEDuser, including the protocol in the Documentation Toolkit, may be enough.
However, you'd have to decide this for your project based on your team's comfort level and expertise.
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